Retweets Over Favorites: 6 Tips to Get Your Content Retweeted More

One of the biggest complications many content marketers face on twitter is prompting followers to retweet posts rather than simply favoriting them.

While favorites show your fans are listening, favoriting a tweet doesn’t spread your message throughout your network like retweeting does.

If you’re tired of your best and brightest tweets going nowhere, it might be time to switch up your strategy. Here are some tips to help you spread the word with twitter re-tweets.

Tip #1: Be Fresh, Original, and Witty

When your fans and followers see the same bland, boring tweets they’ve seen dozens of times from other companies, nothing you post will stand out from the crowd.

Want people to pay attention to your content? Originality is one of your strongest assets.

Try things like word play, witticisms, and creativity to prompt users to interact with your tweets rather than reading them and moving on.

When your tweets make readers think, interact, or even laugh, you’re much more likely to see retweets rolling in.

Creating controversy can also help increase your retweet count. Instead of just tweeting out a link, include a polarizing comment to generate discussion. Don’t be rude, but don’t be boring either.

Taking a position of some kind will always be more likely to mobilize your audience.

Tip #2: Keep It Short

When users are scrolling down their feed, most won’t stop to read a longer tweet, especially if it means following a link to read the rest of a headline. They may favorite it and keep moving, but long tweets diminish the chances users will retweet your messages.

Instead of trying to push the word limit by using ellipses and excessive text abbreviations, keep your messages easily within the character limit.

Make sure tweets are original and interesting, but emphasize shorter messages to make sure your followers will actually read and absorb what you have to say.

Line breaks are an often overlooked way to create tweets that aren’t word heavy but still take up a good amount of space in someone’s Twitter feed. You can hit “enter” a couple of times and create interesting spacing that will make your tweets stand out from the crowd.

Tip #3: Tweet News and Updates

While funny posts and topical pop culture jokes can show a playful side to your company and are effective at targeting the younger demographic, a lack of substantive content can reduce your chances of being retweeted.

Even if funny and witty is more your style, there’s always room for relevant and interesting news.

Keep in mind that “news” doesn’t have to mean current events. You can keep your followers up-to-the-moment on what influencers in your industry are doing, or share breaking news about regulations in your industry.

If you seem like an authoritative source of meaningful information, retweets will be more plentiful.

Tip #4: Step Up Hashtag Usage

Whether you love them or you hate them, hashtags are a big part of modern social media use. Some companies innately shy away from these sorts of elements because they don’t seem intuitive, but embracing hashtags is one of the best ways to gain new followers and draw attention to yourself from others tweeting about similar things.

By strategically inserting hashtags into your tweets, you can enhance visibility beyond your followers, expanding your reach and widening the net of those who can follow and retweet you. Using hashtags can help you get the retweets you need, especially when you’re targeting big industries or current event news.

Twitter users who regularly follow the same hashtags may be glad to see a new voice chiming in too, and may therefore be more likely to retweet you as a fresh perspective in an otherwise repetitive niche.

Retweeting is seen as a sign of respect of sorts, especially when retweets are coming from others in your industry. If you want your followers to retweet your posts, a great way to curry favor is to do the same for them.

The caveat here is to only retweet content that all your followers are interested in. Don’t feel obligated to retweet everything and anything.

Tip #6: Get to Know the Culture and Lingo

Content marketers that do not stay up with the times may not realize they’re behind the curve, but their followers will. As the climate of social media changes, so does the language that defines the culture.

Although it may be a hard adjustment, a big part of succeeding on social media involves understanding the lingo and the attitude towards each social media platform.

Without embracing the little things that define Twitter, like the use of hashtags, tagging, and pop culture words and phrases, your tweets will never gain the traction you’d like to see.

The art of social media isn’t always easy, which is why taking the right approach is often the difference between successful promotion by millions of fans and talking to yourself.

While there’s nothing wrong with a few favorites, retweeting should be your end game, making it very important to tailor your strategy towards urging your followers to share your messages. By stepping up your strategy, improving the content of your posts, reciprocating retweets, incorporating more hashtags, and using contests as a leg up, you can take the right steps toward escaping from the black hole of favoriting.

Christian is founder and CEO of SurveyGizmo and MarketerGizmo. Prior to founding SurveyGizmo, he spent 13 years as a research consultant. He started as a software developer right out of high school and has always been an entrepreneur at heart.

MarketerGizmo’s goal is to provide marketing tools and information that allow marketers to become more agile, increase their marketing intelligence, and empower them to excel professionally. Find out more about us.